“I believed implicitly in the humility, in the sincerity of Lelio.
Besides, I had ample reason to trust my own strength. I resolved to
see him. I had completely forgotten his faded features, his low-bred
manners, his vulgar aspect; I recollected only the fascination of his
genius, his letters, and his love. I answered:
“‘I will see you. Find some secure place, but hope for nothing but for
what you have asked. Should you seek to abuse my trust, you would be a
villain, and I should not fear you.’
“Answer:
“‘Your trust would save you from the basest of villains. You will see,
Madame, that Lelio is not unworthy of it. Duke ---- has often been good
enough to offer me the use of his house in the Rue de Valois. Deign to
go thither after the play.’
“Some explanations and directions as to the locality of the house
followed. I received this note at four o’clock. The whole negotiation
had occupied but a day. I had spent it in wandering through the house
like one distracted; I was in a fever. This rapid succession of events
bore me along as in a dream.
“When I had made the final decision, when it was impossible to draw
back, I sank down upon my ottoman, breathless and dizzy.
“I was really ill. A surgeon was sent for; I was bled. I told my
servants not to mention my indisposition to any one; I dreaded the
intrusion of officious advisers, and was determined not to be prevented
from going out that night.
“I threw myself upon my bed to await the appointed hour, and gave
orders that no visitors should be admitted. The blood-letting had
relieved and weakened me; I sank into a great depression of spirits.
All my illusions vanished with the excitement which had accompanied
my fever. Reason and memory returned; I remembered my disenchantment
in the coffee-house, and Lelio’s wretched appearance there; I prepared
to blush for my folly, and to fall from the height of my deceitful
visions to a bare and despicable reality. I no longer understood how it
had been possible for me to consent to exchange my heroic and romantic
tenderness for the revulsion of feeling which awaited me, and the sense
of shame which would henceforth poison all my recollections. I bitterly
regretted what I had done; I wept my illusions, my love, and that
future of pure and secret joys which I was about to forfeit. Above all,
I mourned for Lelio, whom in seeing I should forever lose, in whose
love I had found five years of happiness, and for whom in a few hours I
should feel nothing but indifference.
“In the paroxysm of my grief I violently wrung my arms; the vein
reopened, and I had barely time to ring for my maid, who found me in a
swoon in my bed. A deep and heavy sleep, against which I struggled in
vain, seized me. I neither dreamed nor suffered; I was as one dead for
several hours. When I again opened my eyes my room was almost dark,
my house silent; my waiting-woman was asleep in a chair at the foot
of my bed. I remained for some time in such a state of numbness and
weakness that I recollected nothing. Suddenly my memory returned, and
I asked myself whether the hour and the day of rendezvous were passed,
whether I had slept an hour or a century; whether I had killed Lelio by
breaking my word. Was there yet time? I tried to rise, but my strength
failed me. I struggled for some moments as if in a nightmare. At last
I summoned all the forces of my will. I sprang to the floor, opened
the curtains, and saw the moon shining upon the trees of my garden.
I ran to the clock; the hands marked ten. I seized my maid and waked
her: ‘Quinette, what day of the week is it?’ She sprang from her chair,
screaming, and tried to escape from me, for she thought me delirious; I
reassured her and learned that I had only slept three hours. I thanked
God. I asked for a hackney-coach. Quinette looked at me in amazement.
At last she became convinced that I had the full use of my senses,
transmitted my order, and began to dress me.
“I asked for my simplest dress; I put no ornaments in my hair, I
refused to wear my rouge. I wished above all things for Lelio’s esteem
and respect, for they were far more precious to me than his love.
Nevertheless, I was pleased when Quinette, who was much surprised at
this new caprice, said, examining me from head to foot: ‘Truly, madame,
I know not how you manage it. You are dressed in a plain white robe,
without either train or pannier; you are ill and as pale as death;
you have not even put on a patch; yet I never saw you so beautiful as
to-night. I pity the men who will look upon you!’ ‘Do you think me so
very austere, my poor Quinette?’ ‘Alas, madame, every day I pray Heaven
to make me like you; but up to this time--’ ‘Come, simpleton, give me
my mantle and muff.’
“At midnight I was in the house of the Rue de Valois. I was carefully
veiled, a sort of valet de chambre received me; he was the only human
being to be seen in this mysterious dwelling. He led me through the
windings of a dark garden to a pavilion buried in silence and shadow.
Depositing his green silk lantern in the vestibule, he opened the door
of a large dusky room, showed me by a respectful gesture and with a
most impassive face a ray of light proceeding from the other extremity,
and said, in a tone so low that it seemed as if he feared to awaken the
sleeping echoes: ‘Your ladyship is alone, no one else has yet come.
Your ladyship will find in the summer parlor a bell which I will answer
if you need anything.’ He disappeared as if by enchantment, shutting
the door upon me.
“I was terribly frightened; I thought I had fallen into some trap.
I called him back. He instantly reappeared, and his air of stupid
solemnity reassured me. I asked him what time it was, although I
knew perfectly well, for I had sounded my watch twenty times in the
carriage. ‘It is midnight,’ answered he, without raising his eyes. I
now resolutely entered the summer parlor, and I realized how unfounded
were my fears when I saw that the doors which opened upon the garden
were only of painted silk. Nothing could be more charming than this
boudoir; it was fitted up as a concert-room. The walls were of stucco
as white as snow, and the mirrors were framed in unpolished silver.
Musical instruments of unusually rich material were scattered about,
upon seats of white velvet, trimmed with pearls. The light came from
above through leaves of alabaster, which formed a dome. This soft, even
light might have been mistaken for that of the moon. A single statue
of white marble stood in the middle of the room; it was an antique and
represented Isis veiled, with her finger upon her lips. The mirrors
which reflected us, both pale and draped in white, produced such an
illusion upon me that I was obliged to distinguish my finger from hers.
“Suddenly the silence was interrupted; the door was opened and closed,
and light footsteps sounded upon the floor. I sank into a chair more
dead than alive, for I was about to see Lelio shorn of the illusions of
the stage. I closed my eyes, and inwardly bade them farewell before I
reopened them.
“But how much was I surprised! Lelio was beautiful as an angel. He had
not taken off his stage dress, and it was the most elegant I had ever
seen him wear. His Spanish doublet was of white satin, his shoulder and
garter knots of cherry ribbons, and a short cloak of the same color
was thrown over his shoulder. He wore an immense ruff of English lace;
his hair was short and unpowdered, partially covered by a cap with
white feathers and a diamond rose. In this costume he had just played
Don Juan in ‘Festin de Pierre.’ Never had I seen him so beautiful, so
young, so poetical, as at that moment. Velasquez would have worshiped
such a model.
“He knelt before me. I could not help stretching out my hand to him, he
seemed so submissive, so fearful of displeasing me. A man sufficiently
in love to tremble before a woman was rare in those times, and this
one was thirty-five and an actor.
“It seemed to me then, it seems to me still, that he was in the first
bloom of youth. In his white dress he looked like a young page; his
forehead had all the purity, his heart all the ardor of a first love.
He took my hands and covered them with kisses. My senses seemed to
desert me; I caressed his burning forehead, his stiff, black hair, and
the brown neck which disappeared in the soft whiteness of his collar.
He wept like a woman; I was overwhelmed with surprise.
“I wept delicious tears. I compelled him to raise his head and look at
me. How splendid, how tender were his eyes! How much fascination his
warm, true soul communicated to the very defects of his face, and the
scars left upon it by time and toil! When I saw the premature wrinkles
upon his beautiful forehead, when I saw the pallor of his lips, the
languor of his smile, my heart was melted. I felt that I must needs
weep for his griefs, his disappointments, the labors of his life. I
identified myself with him in all his sorrows, even that of his long,
hopeless love for me, and I had but one wish--to compensate him for the
ills he had suffered.
“My dear Lelio, my great Rodrigue, my beautiful Don Juan! He spoke to
me, he told me how from a dissipated actor I had made him a man full of
life and ardor; how I had raised him in his own eyes, and restored to
him the illusions of his youth; he spoke of his respect, his veneration
for me, of his contempt for the species of love which was then in
fashion. Never did a man with more penetrating eloquence speak to the
heart of a woman; never did Racine make love utter itself with such
conviction of its own truth, such poetry, such strength. Everything
elevated and profound, everything sweet and fiery which passion can
inspire, lay in his words, his face, his eyes, his caresses. Alas! did
he deceive himself! Was he playing a part?”
“I certainly do not think so,” I cried, looking at the Marquise. She
seemed to grow young as she spoke; and, like the fairy Urgela, to cast
off her hundred years. I know not who has said that a woman’s heart has
no wrinkles.
“Listen to the end,” said she. “I threw my arms around his neck; I
shivered as I touched the satin of his coat, as I breathed the perfume
of his hair. My emotion was too violent and I fainted.
“He recalled me to myself by his prompt assistance. I found him still
kneeling at my feet. ‘Pity me, kill me,’ cried he. He was paler and far
more ill than I.
“‘Listen, Lelio,’ said I. ‘Here we separate forever, but let us
carry from this place a whole future of blissful thoughts and adored
memories. I swear, Lelio, to love you till my death. I swear it
without fear, for I feel that the snows of age will not have the power
to extinguish this ardent flame.’ Lelio knelt before me; he did not
implore me, he did not reproach me; he said that he had not hoped
for so much happiness as I had given him, and that he had no right
to ask for more. Nevertheless, as he bade me farewell, his despair,
the emotion which trembled in his face, terrified me. I asked him if
he would not find happiness in thinking of me, if the ecstasy of our
meeting would not lend its charm to all the days of his life, if his
past and future sorrows would not be softened each time he recalled it.
He roused himself to promise, to swear all I asked. He again fell at my
feet and passionately kissed my dress. I made a sign and he left me.
The carriage I had sent for came.
“The automatic servant of the house knocked three times outside to warn
me. Lelio despairingly threw himself in front of the door: he looked
like a spectre. I gently repulsed him and he yielded. I crossed the
threshold, and as he attempted to follow me, I showed him a chair in
the middle of the room, underneath the statue of Isis. He sat down in
it. A passionate smile wandered over his lips, his eyes sent out one
more flash of gratitude and love. He was still beautiful, still young,
still a grandee of Spain. After a few steps, when I was about to lose
him forever, I turned back and looked at him once more. Despair had
crushed him. He was old, altered, frightful. His body seemed paralyzed.
His stiffened lips attempted an unmeaning smile. His eyes were glassy
and dim; he was now only Lelio, the shadow of a lover and a prince.”
The Marquise paused; then, while her aspect changed like that of a ruin
which totters and sinks, she added: “Since then I have not heard him
mentioned.”
The Marquise made a second and a longer pause; then, with the terrible
fortitude which comes with length of years, which springs from the
persistent love of life or the near hope of death, she said with a
smile: “Well, do you not now believe in the ideality of the eighteenth
century?”